Variations on a Theme by Paganini
(Variations on a Theme of Paganini)
(8 mins)

Stephen Hough
piano

INTERVAL

Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan Williams1872–1958

A Sea Symphony (66 mins)

Sally Matthews
soprano

Roderick Williams
baritone

BBC Proms Youth Choir

BBC Symphony Chorus

Stephen Hough
piano

Sally Matthews
soprano

Roderick Williams
baritone

BBC Proms Youth Choir

BBC Symphony Chorus

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Sakari Oramo
Conductor

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Sakari Oramo
Conductor

The festival opens with a choir of 450 and two great portraits of the sea: Sakari Oramo conducts Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony and Britten’s Four Sea Interludes as well as the world premiere of Julian Anderson’s Harmony. Pianist Stephen Hough plays Paganini variations by Rachmaninov and by featured composer Lutosławski.

In its 50th-anniversary year, Doctor Who returns to the Proms with a spectacular concert featuring Murray Gold’s music for the series, plus pieces by Bach, Bizet and Debussy, and a special performance of one of the most iconic theme tunes in television history. Performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Ben Foster, the Prom includes a host of alien friends and foes plus a very special appearance by Matt Smith.

Sun14 Jul

In its 50th-anniversary year, Doctor Who returns to the Proms with a spectacular concert featuring Murray Gold’s music for the series, plus pieces by Bach, Bizet and Debussy, and a special performance of one of the most iconic theme tunes in television history. Performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Ben Foster, the Prom includes a host of alien friends and foes plus a very special appearance by Matt Smith.

A discussion on the history of French ballet from Lully to Stravinsky and an examination of The Rite of Spring, 100 years after its premiere, with Jane Pritchard, Dance Historian at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles trace the history of French dance music – on period instruments – from the Court of the Sun King at Versailles to the riotous 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring.

Inspired by daybreak on the Kent coast, David Matthews’s A Vision of the Sea opens the BBC Philharmonic’s Prom with Juanjo Mena. Nobuyuki Tsujii is the soloist in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, a passionate upbeat to Nielsen’s life-affirming ‘Inextinguishable’ Symphony.

The London Adventist Chorale, London Community Gospel Choir, People’s Christian Fellowship Choir, Muyiwa & Riversongz and Pastor David Daniel raise the roof of the Royal Albert Hall in a late-night celebration of gospel music’s powerful songs of praise and passion.

Wed17 Jul

Polish is the third most spoken language in the UK, after English and Welsh, and the 2011 census found over half a million Poles living in Britain. But you don't need to speak Polish in order to embrace Polish culture, thanks to a current boom in translating Polish novels into English. Rana Mitter asks the Polish-born writers Eva Hoffman and A.M. Bakalar to provide a guide to the most exciting writing coming out of Poland today.

Thomas Adès conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Christianne Stotijn and Simon Keenlyside in the world premiere of his Totentanz, a work inspired by a mural destroyed in the Second World War bombing of Lübeck. Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem and Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto complete a programme of remembrance and survival.

Nordic forests, Alpine sunlight and a Moorish nocturne. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Thomas Søndergård play Wilhelm Stenhammar’s Excelsior!, Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony and Szymanowski’s opulent symphony subtitled ‘The Song of the Night’.

Sir Antonio Pappano conducts the Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome, in Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony and Mozart’s elegant ‘Haffner’ Symphony. Jan Lisiecki plays Schumann’s intimate Piano Concerto in the first of Pappano’s two Proms.

Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music play works by Handel and the Roman composers who inspired him. Soprano Sophie Bevan sings two Italian cantatas in a programme including concerti grossi by Corelli and Valentini and keyboard miniatures by Bernardo Pasquini.

Sir Antonio Pappano, the Orchestra and Chorus of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome, and soprano Maria Agresta celebrate Verdi’s bicentenary with the Four Sacred Pieces, the original version of the Requiem’s ‘Libera me’, a touching Ave Maria setting and the orchestral version of the great opera composer’s String Quartet.

The newly formed National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America makes its Proms debut under the baton of Valery Gergiev in Sean Shepherd’s Magiya and Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony. Violinist Joshua Bell is the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

Paul Van Nevel and the Huelgas Ensemble mine the rich and rarely performed repertoire of Renassiance and Baroque Poland in motets by Zieleński, Klabon, Demantius and Marenzio, including the earliest-known setting of a Polish text, the mid-15th-century ‘Chwała tobie, Gospodznie’ (Praise to Thee, O Lord).

Stolen gold and a world order in chaos. Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin open the Proms cycle of Wagner’s epic operatic tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung, with a cast hand-picked from Barenboim’s Berlin and Milan productions.

Two portraits of Sir John Falstaff and a rare performance of Granville Bantock’s Sapphic Poem with cellist Raphael Wallfisch. Jac van Steen conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in a programme that climaxes with Tchaikovsky’s heady Fourth Symphony.

Talking birds, dragon’s blood and a ring of fire. Lance Ryan sings the title-role in the third part of Daniel Barenboim’s complete Ring cycle with the Staatskapelle Berlin. Nine Stemme is the rebel Valkyrie, Brünnhilde, who teaches Siegfried love and fear.

Sat27 Jul

Wagner's stage directions are notorious: giant dragons; underwater singing; horses on stage; storms; destruction by raging fires. Designer Peter Mumford and Dr John Snelson of the ROH discuss the solutions available to 21st century artists and some famous 19th and 20th century stagings. Presented by Anne McElvoy and including readings by David Rintoul. Guests include Philip Hoare, Jamila Gavin and Elizabeth Gray. Recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of this year's Proms Plus events.

Semyon Bychkov and the BBC Symphony Orchestra interrupt the Ring cycle to explore Wagner’s intoxicating tragedy Tristan and Isolde, a turning point in the history of Romantic music. Robert Dean Smith and Violeta Urmana are the illicit lovers.

Daniel Barenboim’s survey of The Ring of the Nibelung with the Staatskapelle Berlin concludes with betrayal, revenge, immolation and the return of the stolen gold to the waters of the Rhine. Nina Stemme sings the role of Brünnhilde, while Mikhail Petrenko is the vengeful Hagen.

Pianist Imogen Cooper, soprano Ruby Hughes, tenor James Gilchrist and guitarist Christoph Denoth mark Britten’s centenary in a sequence of song-cycles and miniatures, from Night Piece (Notturno) to A Charm of Lullabies, My beloved is mine and Abraham and Isaac.

Fresh from their residency at the O2, the inimitable vocalists of Naturally 7 build on the gospel legacy in a Late Night Prom of a cappella soul with a hip hop tang. Drums, harmonica, brass, turntable ‘scratching’ and electric guitars are all in the mix – recreated with nothing more than the human voice.

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra returns to the BBC Proms with conductor Daniel Harding. Paul Lewis is the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, its play of light and shade echoed in the same composer’s Masonic Funeral Music, Schumann’s Second Symphony and Sibelius’s Seventh.

Wed31 Jul

The writers Simon Heffer and Andrew O'Hagan discuss the halcyon days of light music at the BBC and beyond with Matthew Sweet. With its jaunty melodies and cascading strings, they restore it to its proper place: the heart of British musical life. Recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of this year's Proms Plus events.

Barry Wordsworth and the BBC Concert Orchestra, with pianists Noriko Ogawa and Kathryn Stott, offer a parade of British light and occasional music, including Arnold’s Concerto for two pianos (three hands), Bantock’s bittersweet Pierrot of the Minute, Elgar’s Nursery Suite and a medley of radio favourites.

Fasten your seat belts as Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra plunge into Frank Zappa’s counter-culture satire The Adventures of Greggery Peccary, with a car-chase, a coughing mountain and a choir of stenographers. A wild Study for player piano by Conlon Nancarrow and the UK premiere of Philip Glass’s Tenth Symphony complete a far-reaching Late Night Prom.

Legendary American pianist Peter Serkin makes his Proms debut with Oliver Knussen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky’s Concerto for piano and wind instruments. Henze’s Barcarola opens the first of this season’s concerts focusing on the music of Michael Tippett as Knussen conducts Tippett’s Symphony No. 2.

Peter Oundijan conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Nikolai Lugansky in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and the world premiere of Naresh Sohal’s brand-new The Cosmic Dance, a celebration of ancient mythology and mathematical theory.

Music for strings by Tippett, Holst and Britten, plus two dramatic works for the female voice: Britten’s Phaedra and Lennox Berkeley’s Four Poems of St Teresa of Avila. Mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly joins conductor Sian Edwards and the Britten Sinfonia.

Acclaimed Wagnerian Donald Runnicles continues the Proms Wagner bicentenary celebrations with Wagner’s Tannhäuser. Robert Dean Smith sings the role of the titular troubadour who tires of sensual pleasure and longs for spiritual redemption

Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth and her all-female brass ensemble, tenThing, play a vibrant programme of tangos, seguidillas and serenades by Bizet, Copland, Grieg and Piazzolla – and a new work by British composer Diana Burrell.

John Storgårds directs the BBC Philharmonic in Korngold’s Symphony, drawn in part from the film music for The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Rubbra’s Ode to the Queen and Walton’s Orb and Sceptre. Vilde Frang plays Bruch’s much-loved Violin Concerto.

Two works by Gustav Holst, and two from the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski. Edward Gardner directs the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Holst’s Egdon Heath and The Planets and Lutosławski’s Symphonic Variations. Louis Lortie is the soloist in Lutosławski’s Piano Concerto.

Thu8 Aug

To mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath and the publication of her novel, The Bell Jar, the writer, Lavinia Greenlaw and the critic, Sally Bayley, look back on the legacy of a remarkable poet with readings by Buffy Davis. Born in Boston in 1932 Plath moved to England to study at Cambridge where she met and married the poet Ted Hughes. Her first collection of poems, Colossus, was published here in 1960. In 1962 she wrote most of the poems which would form her best known collection, Ariel. She died in February 1963 during one of the most severe winters on record in Britain. Ariel and The Bell Jar were published after her death. Recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of this year's Proms Plus events.

Hail, ice, thunder, rain … and the bark of a dog on a sunny afternoon. Iconoclastic violinist Nigel Kennedy plays Vivaldi’s endlessly fascinating set of concertos, The Four Seasons, in a Late Night Prom with players from Palestine and Poland.

In their second BBC Proms appearance this season, Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra are joined by Genia Kühmeier, Anna Larsson and the Bavarian Radio Chorus for Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 2, ‘Resurrection’, bringing a vision of life after death.

A late-night feast of sinfonias, arias and chorales as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, 70 this year, conducts the singers and players of the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in Bach’s Easter Oratorio and Ascension Oratorio.

Broadcast live on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 1Xtra and BBC Radio 3, Jules Buckley leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a collision of Fazer, Henze, Laura Mvula, Mosolov and Maverick Sabre, with guest artists from the worlds of urban and contemporary classical music.

BBC co-commission with the Royal Philharmonic Society and the New York Philharmonic: world premiere BBC commission: world premiere (15 mins)

INTERVAL

BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven1770–1827

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, 'Choral' (70 mins)

Ailish Tynan
soprano

Jennifer Johnston
mezzo-soprano

Toby Spence
tenor

Gerald Finley
baritone

Ailish Tynan
soprano

Jennifer Johnston
mezzo-soprano

Toby Spence
tenor

Gerald Finley
baritone

Codetta
Proms debut artist

Irish Youth Chamber Choir
Proms debut artist

National Youth Choir of Great Britain

National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain

Vasily Petrenko
Conductor

Codetta
Proms debut artist

Irish Youth Chamber Choir
Proms debut artist

National Youth Choir of Great Britain

National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain

Vasily Petrenko
Conductor

Vasily Petrenko conducts the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and young singers from across the British Isles in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Vaughan Williams’s Walt Whitman setting Towards the Unknown Region and the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Frieze.

Late-15th-century motets from the Eton Choirbook alternate with music by Gustav Holst and his daughter Imogen and the UK premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s The Moth Requiem in an alluring programme from the BBC Singers and the Nash Ensemble under Nicholas Kok.

David Atherton conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Holst’s tone-poem Indra, the world premiere of Nishat Khan’s new Sitar Concerto No. 1 and Vaughan Williams’s bittersweet portrait of the capital’s parks and pavements, A London Symphony.

Cerys Matthews, Laura Marling and The Stranglers join London Sinfonietta for an eclectic Late Night Prom including 20th-century classics by Berio, Varèse and Xenakis, plus a live remix mash-up by composer Anna Meredith.

Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra play Ravel’s vivid orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and the UK premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s The Rider on the White Horse. Daniil Trifonov is the soloist in Glazunov’s Second Piano Concerto.

Celebrating their 40th anniversary, the Tallis Scholars return to the BBC Proms in a Late Night Prom interweaving the movements of John Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas with motets by the infamous aristocratic madrigalist Carlo Gesualdo.

Charles Dutoit conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and a trio of solo cellists in Penderecki’s Concerto grosso. Stravinsky provides the Fireworks, Debussy the sea (La mer) and Ravel a sensual sunrise (in music from the ballet Daphnis and Chloe).

Last heard at the Proms in 1977, The Midsummer Marriage is Tippett’s The Magic Flute, an opera rich in trials and transformations. Sir Andrew Davis conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers, with Paul Groves and Erin Wall singing the roles of Mark and Jenifer.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra plays Dvořák last ‘Old World’ Symphony, No. 8, under Andris Nelsons. Soprano Kristīne Opolais sings arias by Verdi and Tchaikovsky in a matinee that ends with a flurry of Viennese waltzes and polkas by Johann Strauss II.

Marin Alsop conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Choir of the Enlightenment in a rare performance of Brahms’s A German Requiem on period instruments. Brahms’s Tragic Overture and Schumann’s Fourth Symphony complete a powerful programme of mourning and consolation.

Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of Rzewski’s Piano Concerto (with the composer as soloist), Gerald Barry’s No other people., John White’s Chord-Breaking Machine and Morton Feldman’s late masterpiece, Coptic Light.

The Fanfare No. 5 from Tippett’s The Mask of Time opens tonight's survey of 20th-century greats with the London Symphony Orchestra and Ian Bostridge, from Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra and Britten’s Les illuminations to Elgar’s Second Symphony.

John Woolrich and Tansy Davies add two new variations to ‘Sellinger’s Round’, the Elizabethan melody embellished by Imogen Holst, Britten, Tippett and their contemporaries in 1952. Ben Johnson sings the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings in the English Chamber Orchestra’s matinee, which includes Lutosławski’s Paroles tissées.

The pan-European Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester returns to the BBC Proms with conductor Philippe Jordan and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in a programme of Wagner’s overture to Rienzi, Ravel’s jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G major and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.

BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists the Signum Quartet explore the Bartók-influenced String Quartet No. 3 of one of the 20th century’s most accomplished composers, Elizabeth Maconchy. Pianist and fellow NGA Christian Ihle Hadland joins the quartet for Brahms’s F minor Piano Quintet, another work of passion and precision.

A Bank Holiday recital exploring the lighter side of the organ. Richard Hills’s matinée includes music by John Ireland, Edward German, Eric Coates and Arthur Sullivan, as well as skirting the fringes of jazz.

Film composer Debbie Wiseman and writer David Benedict talk to Matthew Sweet about the ways in which film-makers have created mood with music from the very first days of silent film to the contemporary CGI blockbuster.